In many well applications, various types of flow meters and associated equipment are employed to monitor fluid flow through wellbore equipment. Some flow meters include a venturi section designed to provide a mass rate measurement as fluid passes through the venturi. The design of these types of flow meters causes a physical disruption to the flow and pressure regime to give a conditioning effect to the fluids as they pass through the venturi.
Existing flow meters present challenges in certain types of applications, e.g. clean-up applications and intervention applications, when tools are conveyed to a position below the flow meter. The venturi section may block passage of such tools and thus require several runs on coiled tubing or slick line for removal of the venturi section. Once the venturi section is removed, intervention below the flow meter may be performed for remedial or logging purposes.
In some applications, the flow meters also are limited by orientation requirements. For example, certain flow meter orientations can lead to uncertainty of measurements taken in stratified flow, e.g. flow with limited mixing of water, oil and gas. In general, venturi meters are not set in the horizontal plane due to slip iterations between the phases. In other words, gravity is used to support a venturi based flow measurement for slip correction and thus such flow meters are deployed in vertical or low deviation planes. Some flow meters also present problems during run in hole operations. For example, the flow meters may require a relatively slow run in hole process while providing potential debris gathering points along the throat of the venturi.